The Cheers of Strangers

Last week I went for this little loping jog on the beach, just chugged along as close to the surf as possible, near the packed sand, but the tide was coming in and my sneaker got soaked so I moved up further to where the sand was dry and my feet were sinking and my gait was graceless. This was on Memorial Day and the beach was a bit crowded and as I clumsily loped past a pair of young men, they kind of pointed and clapped, which at first I was embarrassed by but then I shouted to them “This is so hard!!!” And they cheered some more and said “We love you!!! You can do it!” And it was very silly and a little humiliating but also I genuinely loved it, and thought you should know.

And I feel embarrassed to call my run a run, because it’s week 3 of the 8 week couch to 5k program, which I’ve been doing for LITERALLY five years because I love to run intervals and I love that the computer keeps my pace for me. But it makes me feel so good to get that kind of out-of-breath-sweaty, and I can do it anywhere and I end up seeing so much when I do it.

Who gives a shit if I’m not even training for a 5K or getting faster? My heart is healthier, stress is flushed from my system, I get a lift from listening to my tunes.

Our free write came from an Instagram post on my sister’s account: “I feel rested when…”

Our poem: Elegy Just in Case by Richard Jackson

And our prompt: start with writing about something very big in nature–the sky, the weather, the wind–then borrow a line from the poem and go from there.

xoxo. send me a poem/post a poem here any time. let’s do the work, even when it’s clumsy and graceless and wouldn’t be objectively impressive to anyone else. Cheering for you. I love you. You can do it.